Most of the thousands of patient advocacy groups in the U.S. still focus on raising awareness or begging for more federal money.

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But pain patient advocacy groups and pharmaceutical companies, among others, fear that reclassification will make it harder for patients to get medications they need.

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Nancy Koenigsberg, the legal director of Disability Rights New Mexico, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, one of many patient advocacy groups that argued for stricter oversight of ECT devices in the lead-up to last week's meeting, says her organization was "pleased" with the outcome.

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"The answer is dependent on how the major stakeholders, public health agencies, community physicians, patient advocacy groups, FDA, and other regulatory agencies think of this, " said Howard Jaffe, president of the Gilead Foundation, a charitable giving arm of Gilead Sciences, and a co-author on the paper.

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Thirty patient advocacy groups, 244 economists, and 145 members of Congress have sent letters saying the program is flawed, warning that it reduces quality and, once competitors have been driven out of the market, the remaining suppliers will be able to jack up prices, defeating the goal of cutting Medicare spending.

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